Virtually yearly on July 9, Jennifer Lynn Logan turns to social media with a heartfelt prayer. She bows her head for her brother and his co-defendant – Mark Cambre – but additionally for the sufferer’s household.
Her annual posts learn virtually the identical manner every year. “Please pray for my brother, please pray for Mark, and please pray for all three households affected by this tragedy.”
In 2006, her brother Donald Logan was convicted of the second-degree homicide of retired New Orleans police officer Kelly Marrione.
She will always remember {that a} life was misplaced, Jennifer Logan says.
Nonetheless, she doesn’t agree with how her brother was convicted, with a non-unanimous jury that voted 11 to 1 to convict. On the time, Louisiana was one of many solely states that allowed non-unanimous juries, which have since been discovered unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. “It’s simply not honest,” his sister mentioned. “In 49 different states, this wouldn’t occur.”
A split-jury conviction wouldn’t stand wherever else in the US.
Now, a invoice making its manner by means of the Louisiana State Senate is making an attempt to appropriate the state of affairs, which is exclusive to Louisiana. “Louisiana lawmakers now have a chance to lastly deal with this historical past and to acknowledge the proper of each Louisianan to a good course of within the authorized system,” mentioned Samatha Kennedy, government director of the Promise of Justice Initiative.
Within the Senate invoice sponsored by Sen. Royce Duplessis, these individuals with verdicts made with a 10-2 or 11-1 juries have an opportunity to maneuver their instances again into court docket. They deserve their day in court docket, Kennedy mentioned. In spite of everything, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom made clear that “juries should agree on an individual’s guilt to take their freedom away.”
That didn’t occur in Logan’s case. His dissenting juror remembers the trial properly.
Juror didn’t vote to convict as a result of the information didn’t match the cost
In a telephone dialog with The Lens final week, the dissenting juror in Logan’s case mentioned that she doesn’t imagine justice was executed. The information of the case didn’t advantage a second-degree homicide conviction, which requires intention to kill, she mentioned.
Logan’s lawyer had argued self-defense within the capturing, which occurred after he and Cambre unexpectedly bumped into Marrione at a home-improvement retailer. Just a few months earlier, Marrione had promised to repair a number of site visitors tickets for Cambre for $4,500, however did not observe by means of. Cambre requested Logan to observe Marrione to determine what had occurred, the protection argued. As an alternative, the 2 males had been met on the door by Marrione, who pulled out a gun, capturing Cambre twice, they mentioned. Fearing for his or her lives, they mentioned, they returned hearth, hitting Marrione thrice. Ballistics present that not one of the bullets from Logan’s gun hit the sufferer.
Prosecutors contended that Logan and Cambre had adopted Marrione house to steal his Rolex watch and that the capturing was a botched armed theft.
The dissenting juror discovered the protection argument extra convincing. “(Logan) didn’t have the intent to go there and homicide the man,” she mentioned. And she or he wasn’t alone in that view, she mentioned. Throughout the practically six-hour deliberation, jurors went again to the choose repeatedly to ask for clarification, she mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t actually, you understand, convict an individual for one thing that he didn’t do.”
Because the hours handed, the choose needed to deliver out cushions for the benches to assist ease the pressure of the lengthy hours. One of many jurors was coping with gout, and particular preparations needed to be made to accommodate his situation.
They had been cut up between manslaughter and second-degree, she mentioned. To achieve consensus, different jurors – worn down by the prolonged deliberations – shifted their positions. “However I used to be like, ‘I’m not altering my vote,’” she mentioned. On her juror slip, she voted Not Responsible and wrote in “manslaughter.”
She would vote the identical right this moment, if she had been on that jury and heard the identical testimony, she mentioned. “The information stay the identical. The information stay the identical.”
‘Jim Crow juries’ meant to exclude the voices of Black jurors
In virtually all states, a unanimous verdict, agreed upon by all 12 jurors, has lengthy been required to convict somebody in a prison trial. For many years, Louisiana stood as an exception.
Shortly after Louisiana allowed Black jurors to serve on juries, the state eradicated the requirement of unanimous juries, permitting jurors to achieve a verdict with out together with the votes of Black jurors. For greater than a century, the state permitted convictions even when the jury was not unanimous, setting it other than nationwide authorized norms.
Due to that racist historical past, cut up juries are also known as “Jim Crow juries,” designed to exclude the voices of Black jurors. Even in Donald Logan’s case, the intention turned actuality. Although Logan is white, he had one Black member of his jury: his dissenting juror.
At that time, solely Louisiana and Oregon had been allowing non-unanimous juries. Then, in 2018, Louisiana voters accredited a constitutional modification that barred cut up juries in felony trials. However the reform was not made retroactive for the 1,500 individuals imprisoned for such convictions.
Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, in its 2020 determination Ramos v. Louisiana, dominated that non-unanimous jury verdicts had been unconstitutional. “At the moment, Louisiana’s and Oregon’s are totally – and rightly – relegated to the dustbin of historical past,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a partial concurring opinion.
After the excessive court docket’s determination, the 2 states reacted in another way to those that had already been convicted by cut up juries. Oregon’s state supreme court docket awarded new trials in its instances. Louisiana’s state supreme court docket refused to take care of retroactive instances. Some prisoners have made their manner out on their very own.
However even 5 years after the Ramos determination, Louisiana prisons nonetheless maintain between 900 and 1,000 individuals who didn’t have 12 jurors vote to convict them.
Senate invoice has superior, however faces extra hurdles
Logan has now served practically 22 years of a life sentence on the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He turned certified as an auto mechanic. He discovered graphic design, turned an electrician, auto mechanic, and generator technician. He gained an IC3 digital-literacy certification. Recently, he’s been translating menus and different written supplies into Braille, a ability he discovered by means of an Angola class.
His sister hopes that he may very well be granted a brand new trial – or turn into eligible for parole. “He has a stack foot-high of certificates and programs he accomplished and applications he’s executed. He’s executed all the things doable to raised himself,” his sister mentioned. “I completely have 1000% religion that he can be an incredible and productive member of society.”
The Logan household and different relations are keeping track of the work of the Promise of Justice Initiative, which has continued to push for legislative reform. Till that’s addressed, Kennedy mentioned, “Jim Crow juries solid an ongoing stain on our state’s authorized system.”
However earlier than it turns into legislation, the laws should undergo a number of further steps.
A Senate committee superior Duplessis’ laws, Senate Invoice 218, to the Senate. It may go to the Senate ground Wednesday. If handed within the Senate, it have to be handed by means of a parallel course of within the Home after which signed by the governor.
Provided that that occurs will prisoners in Louisiana convicted with non-unanimous jury verdicts have the ability to search post-conviction aid in court docket.
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